There’s a post over on Ink-Dipped Advice, called “Who are You?” about how important personal values are in professionalism.

Struggled with some client work, when it comes to resizing photos so they work for a website. I’ve attended six different tutorials now for that platform. All six contradicted each other; NONE of them had the same stuff coming up on screen that I am. I’ve done all the adjustments suggested, and some of the photos still don’t look right. These aren’t photos that can be retaken. I have to use what I have. The client’s not too worried about it (yet), but I’m not happy.

Andrew Cuomo broke it down very well – separating the protestors from the looters, and what each stand for. And then where the virus comes into all of this.

Because the virus is still here, still waiting to kill more.

But, like I said yesterday, we weren’t dying fast enough from the virus to suit the Sociopath, so now he’s going to send people out to shoot us.

I’m hoping the good writing flow for THE BARD’S LAMENT continues. If it does, and I can keep pace and up it a little, I can make my deadline.

However, in all this, my second surgery has now been scheduled, for June 25. There are stringent protocols around it, due to the virus – including the fact that, the day before, I have to get a COVID-19 test and then isolate completely until I enter the hospital the next day. Now, I’m an advocate of as much testing as possible. Yet I feel guilty that I will be getting a test when so many others aren’t. At the same time, since I’m having surgery, I have to have it. As if the prep for this surgery wasn’t complicated enough anyway and taking an entire day.

If the test comes back negative, I find out when my surgery is scheduled the next day and we go forward with that set of protocols. If it comes back positive, I go into quarantine, and there’s a whole other set of protocols.

They’re going to send me all the instructions, and have put in the prescription for the medication I need to take for the prep. Let’s hope CVS deigns to fill it this time.

And then there are additional post-op protocols that must be followed, due to the virus and the possibility, that even with all these protections in place, I could still be exposed while I’m in the hospital.

So that is going to be an interesting ride. As Venus goes out of Retrograde, and while Mercury is IN Retrograde. Normally, I wouldn’t schedule a surgery while either one is in Retrograde (hence Venus coming out times almost right), but with the Mercury Retrograde, it’s about going back to resolve something that was unresolved – the cancelled surgery. So I’m risking it.

I did some work on the Coventina Circle website. The article about the goddess Coventina is up, along with some links to the historical site. I’ve also posted the blurb for THE BARD’S LAMENT. I have to check with the publisher, but I think the cover reveal is in either August or September. This is the fifth book in the series, and marks just past the half-way point. I love being back in that world.

Went to follow up on an LOI and do some LinkedIn connections. Discovered one of the people to whom I’d sent an LOI just moved companies. Want to stay in touch with him, but not really interested in working with the new company, so I’ll have to figure out to whom to re-send the LOI at the old company.

Tessa doesn’t want to go into the playpen, but Willa likes to show off when Tessa demurs, so Willa was the one who got to go out on the deck yesterday.

I need to do some serious weeding this weekend.

Woke up at 3:30 again today. Getting really tired of being really tired and not sleeping. Writing early this morning (back to BARD as soon as I post this). Then I’m onsite at the client’s for a few hours. Then home, disinfect, maybe more writing or sewing, and more reading about Susanna Centlivre. I still need the catalyst for the play, and haven’t found it yet.

Elizabeth Warren was out with the protesters yesterday, because she walks her talk. Kamala Harris spoke up right away. Joe Biden gave a good speech that didn’t get enough coverage. But the Democrats aren’t hitting back hard enough, and the GOP loves what’s going on. It’s disgusting. They need to stop talking and GET THINGS DONE.

It’s very, very true: If you want peace, work for justice.

Injustice has won out, and it’s so corrupt at the top right now that what’s happening was inevitable.

Spent some time on issues with one of my state senators. On the local level, the town is still being useless.

The COVID numbers are ticking up slowly. I’m keeping an eye on them. If they accelerate, that’ll be another reason for the surgery to be postponed again.

If the surgery goes forward, then there’s all kinds of bloodwork to look forward to in July. Oh, joy. More needles.

Trying to keep balance and perspective on the big picture of what’s happening that has both long and short term effect on my life while dealing with the day-to-day is even more challenging than usual. So I’m just doing what I can as I can and hoping for the best.

Friday, I ran some errands. I had to put gas into the car — I was all the way down to the bottom of the tank. Unusual for me — I usually refill it when I hit half. Of course, because I was so low, they were working on the street and had a detour so I couldn’t get to my usual gas station. I made it to another one, but I was not a happy camper.

One of the annoying things about Cape life is that you’re stuck in ridiculous traffic all summer on roads that can’t handle it. Then, during “shoulder season” — spring and summer — you’re stuck in one-lane only traffic because that’s when they work on the roads.

Only this year, they did roadwork all summer, too, so the summer traffic was even worse than usual, and now it’s no better. Plus, the damn tourists just aren’t going home. It’s gotten to the point where there’s about a week in mid-March where you can get where you need to go on time, where it’s not blocked by snow and too early for roadwork.

The very idea that they want to replace the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges with bridges doubling the current spans is not the solution. There’s no way for that traffic to feed into the current roads and no way to widen those roads. Just have one bridge for on-Cape traffic and one for off-Cape. It will still be a mess. The Cape is beyond capacity.

If you live on Cape, it’s harder and harder to get anywhere OFF Cape and get back to get anything done. And it’s getting harder and harder to get around on Cape. Not to mention that the mass transportation system is awful on Cape, and limited to get on and off. You can get to Boston, but not a whole lot of other places.

On top of that, all the tree-cutting is out of control. It has nothing to do with the health of trees, and everything to do with clear-cutting and leaving the Cape looking like a cross between a sandbar and a prairie. Personally? I like the oxygen trees provide. Breathing matters.

So Friday was annoying. I went to the library to do some work, but it was chaotic and noisy (not in a good way), so I wasn’t there very long.

I couldn’t get all my errands done on Friday because of the traffic. Plus, I hadn’t slept much — insomnia most of the night.

Crashed early on Friday because of Thursday night’s insomnia and slept for 10 hours, which is unusual for me.

So, Saturday, I had to finish what I couldn’t get done on Friday, which included taking the garbage to the dump, coming back and taking the recycling to the dump, and washing out the garbage bins. Also got some raking done, our first raking of the seasons.

In the afternoon, I switched out the lace panels on the first floor for the spiderweb curtains. Even though today is the first of October, and I don’t usually do it until now, I had the time on Saturday, so that’s when I did it. I put up most of the interior decorations. I’ll put up the exterior ones this week.

Roasted a chicken on Saturday night (served with sweet potatoes and spinach). We’ll have some good leftovers this week. I’ll do a curried chicken salad, and maybe a chicken potpie.

Made cinnamon buns on Sunday morning for breakfast. Wrote on Sunday, had a good writing day. Didn’t get everything I’d hope to finish done, but it was still a good writing day.

Tessa hates being an only cat, even though we’re giving her lots of extra attention. We went to the shelter down the street to meet some new arrivals. There are some sweethearts, but we had more questions before we can try to adopt. Let’s hope they can answer. It’s the same place where I adopted Tessa, but they’re made the adoption process more complicated since I adopted her.

Sunday night, made turkey meatloaf in mushroom gravy, served with mashed potatoes and steamed peas.

Read a mystery where the premise was good, but the execution poor. The protagonist annoyed me. She wasn’t cute and relatingly human –she was whiny and annoying. Read two more Travis McGree novels. Again, the female characters were awful. The way Travis tries to romanticize his promiscuity gets annoying. Just admit you’re a dog and be done with it. Stop trying to make us believe you’re different and somehow noble, because you’re not. He’s as damaged as the hot messes he’s always bedding.

Finished reading a couple of memoirs, one by someone with whom I’d worked in New York, another by someone involved in some of the same productions. It amazed me how differently the anecdotes were printed on the page than what was said backstage.

A few major things are up in the air right now, which is something I don’t do well with. But I have to be flexible and keep my ability to think on my feet. This will be a stressful month. And then we go back into Mercury Retrograde, which I dread on so many levels I can’t even start talking about it. There’s too much going on at the same time as not enough. It’s a weird kind of friction.

More insomnia Sunday night into Monday, which means I woke up cranky and out of sorts. Decent early morning writing sessions, time with a client. The necessity of yet more errands that I couldn’t finish over the weekend, piled on with end-of-month errands, meant I missed meditation.

Onsite with a client, and then some other appointments. Too much tension in my life right now.

But as long as I keep showing up at the page every day, at least there’s progress somewhere.

I woke up at 3AM on Tuesday morning — not fun. Couldn’t get back to sleep, and had to get up at 5 anyway. I had to go in early for a client, to get some work out of the way and wait for an incoming shipment.

Let’s just say Tuesday was busy and full of challenges, and leave it at that.

On top of that, my health insurance is screwed up for both last year and this year. I am NOT paying a penalty because THEY screwed up. It’s time to get Elizabeth Warren and Maura Healey involved. Don’t ever let anyone tell you MA is a beacon in healthcare and insurance. It’s all crap.

Found a bunch of comments on the blog going way back into last year to which I’d never responded. My deepest apologies. Some of them were spam – others I caught up on. This is the first time they showed up. I try to stay on top of responding to comments.

Onsite with the client was okay. The shipment for which I was waiting never arrived – it’s stuck in Alaska, and FedEx, as usual, was useless. I was bounced around for THREE HOURS, both on phone and live chat, because NOT A SINGLE REPRESENTATIVE wanted to deal with the issue. Which I had been told yesterday, but a different “support” person had been dealt with.

Yes, you don’t have to point out that me, the writer, being there to accept the shipment was a courtesy, and not my job as the writer.

I’m back on site today, and expecting it to be challenging. As the next few weeks will be challenging.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the radio plays and the novels and the book which I have to review.

I was so exhausted by early afternoon yesterday, I noticed it affected my driving. I should have gone grocery shopping, but I just couldn’t face people in the store.

I need to sort through my seeds and start planting in the next few days. The eggplant, leeks, and scallions will go in soon! I’ll start them inside.

A Twitter pal noticed his interactions have dropped down and some of his followers have fallen away. He has a HUGE following. My following/follower ratio is both smaller and pretty close in numbers. Yes, I’d love a huge audience for my books; however I also feel more comfortable with a more manageable number, and growing the list slowly and steadily, so I can handle it. But that’s me- -he’s great with a huge following. Anyway, I don’t think he has to worry about anything – I think we’ve all got the Februaries, and we’re just damn tired.

Of course, now that I’m trying to move my second domain from 1&1 to Name Silo, it’s more complicated. And when I move the third, it will be even more so. But, sooner or later, I will be free of 1&1 and safe with Name Silo. It will be a relief.

Woke up at 3 and couldn’t get back to sleep. Even the cats were, “You’re kidding, right?”

Up and out of the house for my run by 5. Did my bowtie circuit, which I like much better. No creepy paper delivery guy, but a different creepy guy, also in an SUV. Look, I live in a residential neighborhood. The only reason people have to be out at that hour in that neighborhood are to run, to walk dogs, deliver papers, or go to work, either by car or heading to the nearby train station on foot. There’s just nothing else to do here at 5 AM, unless you’re doing something shady.

Busy weekend. Went to hang out with my friend on Saturday, caught up on laundry, read. Wasn’t the best company because my head was completely into POWER OF WORDS.

Tried a new recipe for dinner. It didn’t work. Enough said.

Played with the cats at night. Did more yoga and a long, helpful mediation. The landlords are gearing up to be hateful again and I have to prepare. If I could give notice and move right this second, I would, but that is not possible for a myriad of reasons.

Sunday morning, had a good yoga section and wrote 3100 words on POWER OF WORDS. I’m as tired after every section as though I’m actually in rehearsal for a production. I’m kind of thrilled and amazed that the section of the book dealing with rehearsals is almost done. I figured it would take me all summer to write the first draft of it. Did another 1K later in the day. When I finish this chapter, Chapter 12, I’m done with the rehearsal section of the book and get to work on the location shooting.

It’s so bizarre, because of the amount of detail I have to put into the planning of the piece they’re shooting within the book — set and costume building schedules, rehearsals, call sheets, shooting schedules, storyboards — it’s like actually doing the shoot, and I’m always a little puzzled for the first couple of hours after writing it until I realize that it’s not an actual production I’m working on!

I’ve got paperwork to prepare for a filing tomorrow, some more pitches to get out, three short pieces to percolate for that job in Austin — I think we’re going to try each other out for awhile –and work to do on Confidential Job #1. I’m up to my neck in Belmont prep and covering the Stanley Cup Final as well, so it’s shaping up to be a busy week.

I’ve been alternating doses of Elsa’s regular medicine with Rescue Remedy. She seems a little better. I’m going to keep it up and maybe take her to the vet next week, if she needs it. She got a lot of sleep yesterday, and she slept through the night better than I did — I woke up at 1:30 AM for some reason, and had a heck of a time getting back to sleep. Elsa just rolled over and put her paw over her face.

Got some work cleared off the desk yesterday morning. Took a nap in the afternoon, to make up for the previous night. Did some hand washing — which means I’ll have to do some ironing in the next few days, but I like to iron, so it’s no big deal. I cooked a lot yesterday afternoon when I woke up — since I’ll be gone for the second half of the week, I wanted to cook anything that could get bad in the fridge. We’ll eat from those dishes until we go, and freeze the rest. I hate to waste food!

Read a bit, wrote a bit, basically had a restorative day. I’m packed for the trip. Yes, I’m a freak — I pack way in advance. I’m surprised I haven’t started packing for Prague! I’ve got some errands to run this morning, and then I’m off to the acupuncturist this afternoon. Traffic will be a nightmare, due to bridge problems — hopefully it won’t undo all the good the acupuncture does!

I had a good writing session this morning (whew). I’m getting back into the groove. I’m writing about Scotland, which always makes me happy.

Somehow, my iPod turned itself on in my purse and ran down its battery, so I’m recharging it. I guess that’s why they recommend the hard case, huh?

Iris and Violet are very busy this morning, so I better see what they’re up to. And then it’s off to start the day.

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Devon’s Random Newsletter

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GWEN FINNEGAN MYSTERIES

Archaeologist Dr. Gwen Finnegan is on the hunt for her lover’s killer. Shy historical researcher Justin Yates, frustrated with his failing relationship, jumps at the chance to join her on a real adventure through Europe, pursued by factions including Gwen’s ex-lover and nemesis, Karl, as they try to unspool fact from fiction in a multi-generational obsession with a statue of the goddess Medusa.
Buy links here.

Stuck in NYC when plans for their next expedition fall through, Gwen and Justin accept teaching jobs at different local universities. Adjusting to their day-to-day relationship, and juggling the academic and emotional demands of their students, they are embroiled in two different, disturbing, paranormal situations that have more than one unusual crossing point. Can they work together to find the answers? Or are new temptations too much to resist? For whom are they willing to put their lives on the line? Available on multiple digital channels here.

NAUTICAL NAMASTE MYSTERIES

SAVASANA AT SEA

Yoga instructor Sophie Batchelder jumps at the chance to teach on a cruise ship when she loses her job and her boyfriend dumps her in the same day. But when her boss is murdered, and the crew thinks she's taking over her predecessor's blackmail scheme, Sophie must figure out who the real killer is -- before he turns her into a corpse, too. A Not-Quite-Cozy Mystery.
Buy Links here.

COVENTINA CIRCLE ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

PLAYING THE ANGLES
Witchcraft, politics, and theatre collide as Morag D’Anneville and Secret Service agent Simon Keane fight to protect the Vice President of the United States -- or is it Morag who needs Simon’s protection more than the VP?
Buy links here.

THE SPIRIT REPOSITORY
Bonnie Chencko knows books change lives. But she never expected her life to change because she happened to duck into a small bookshop in Greenwich Village on a rainy late November night. She’s attracted to Rufus Van Dijk, the mysterious man who owns the bookshop in his ancestors’ building. A building filled with family ghosts, who are mysteriously disappearing. It’s up to Bonnie and her burgeoning Craft powers to rescue the spirits before their souls are lost forever. Buy Links here.

RELICS & REQUIEM
Amanda Breck’s complicated life gets more convoluted when she finds the body of Lena Morgan in Central Park, identical to Amanda’s dream. Detective Phineas Regan is one case away from retirement; the last thing he needs is a murder case tinged by the occult. The seeds of their attraction were planted months ago, when Phineas investigated an attack on Amanda’s friend Morag. Now, fate is determined to draw them close. But can they work together to stop a wily, vicious killer, or will the murderer destroy them both?
Buy link here.

THE JAIN LAZARUS ADVENTURES

Hex Breaker by Devon Ellington. A Jain Lazarus Adventure. Hex Breaker Jain Lazarus joins the crew of a cursed film, teaming with tough, practical Detective Wyatt East on an adventure fighting zombies, ceremonial magicians, the town wife-beater, the messenger of the gods, and their own pasts.
This series will re-release in 2020.
Visit the site for the Jain Lazarus adventures.</a

Full Circle: An Ars Concordia Anthology. Edited by Colin Galbraith. My story is “Pauvre Bob”, set at Arlington Race Track in Illinois is included in this wonderful collection of short stories and poetry. You can download it free here.